The problem
AI labs need large volumes of high-quality expert feedback and evals to train and test models
What they do
Expert human data, RLHF and RL environments for frontier AI labs
Traction $1.2B revenue in 2024, profitable; customers include Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta
Hiring trend
- Open roles
- 28
- Ops roles
- 4
- Headcount
- ~350-500
Headcount 345 (Mar 2026, +10.8% YoY per Revelio; LinkedIn shows ~500); 28 open roles, all US remote
Hiring in
- Remote (US)
Latest news
Sep 2026
Launched DAYJOB benchmarks for agents doing professional healthcare and finance work ↗Glassdoor
3.5 ★ 6 reviews ↗Funding
- Last round
- none (bootstrapped)
- Stage
- Bootstrapped (no outside funding)
- Hiring+1.528 open roles on the live job board (10–29 roles = +1.5)
- Funding recency0Bootstrapped (no outside funding) · none (bootstrapped): no round date on file, so no recency points
- Traction—$1.2B revenue in 2024, profitable; customers include Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta
- Red flags—Noted below (−1 each when significant)Class action (May 2025) alleging data annotators misclassified as contractors; also leaked Anthropic training docs via public Google Drive (Jul 2025, minor). Reported $1B raise at $15-25B never publicly closedLA Times, misclassification lawsuit, May 2025 ↗ · Clarkson Law Firm complaint, May 2025 ↗ · Business Insider, leaked Surge docs, Jul 2025 ↗
- Total3.5Stored score → Tempo (3.5–4.24)
Hiring and funding from the stored fields add up to +1.5. The stored score of 3.5 includes a judgment call the fields don't capture (often a boundary month or a round we don't count), so traction and red-flag points can't be split out exactly.
Distance (Half) is a separate read on how long the lead can last. It doesn't change the score.
Distance
Half · edge: learns from use
Profitable data leader with $1.2B 2024 revenue, but a handful of AI labs supply nearly all of it.
Sources: Sacra: Surge AI profile ↗
Watch-outs
Class action (May 2025) alleging data annotators misclassified as contractors; also leaked Anthropic training docs via public Google Drive (Jul 2025, minor). Reported $1B raise at $15-25B never publicly closed
Sources: LA Times, misclassification lawsuit, May 2025 ↗ · Clarkson Law Firm complaint, May 2025 ↗ · Business Insider, leaked Surge docs, Jul 2025 ↗
Last checked Oct 25, 2026